When Birds' Wings Have Been Clipped
by Lucifer Rosemaunt
Summary: Barca introspection bit with mentions of Barca/Pietros slash.


Title: When Birds' Wings Have Been Clipped  
Author: Lucifer Rosemaunt

Summary: Freedom defined in Barca's life, a genesis from the abstract to the concrete.  
Fandom: Spartacus  
Pairing(s): Barca/Pietros  
Warning(s): Talk of violence and one, I guess, vulgar word  
Word Count: 878  
Rating: T

A/N: I actually love this series but no one writes the ships that I want to read. It seems to be a common occurrence in this fandom, unless you're an Agron/Nasir shipper.  
Story note: A really late gift to Keyklee. It's not as happy as I wanted it to be. It ended up kind of… bittersweet. I figure that's at least one step up from angst.

o.o.o.o

Barca has spent much of his life unaware of the importance of freedom. He is a simple man; there is life and his place within it. Freedom is too much an intangible thing, having slipped through his fingers time and again.

As a youth, he has such privilege as to have freedom. Yet, he does not realize it. There exists an inkling, a hint of it whenever he watches the birds as they swoop and soar above him, chasing a horizon that Barca feels he, too, must chase. However, the sky, as his freedom, is too immense. The width and breadth, the gaping vastness of such freedom is too large to be anything but a thought discarded as soon as it is felt. So, when he cannot join the chase, when his feet remain solidly upon the ground because of his family, because of his people, all he feels is a distant sadness for some reason he cannot fathom.

He does not stay ignorant for long when life sees fit to rip away all that he has and even all that he does not know he has. Freedom becomes a thing he knows only because he no longer has it. Much too late does he realize that there was a feel to his youth, that freedom _has_ a feel. There is a flavor, a texture, a smell to it that he can almost recall if he tries hard enough. Soon though, that tiny piece of freedom slips from his grasp as well. It is taken from him, overwhelmed as he is with bloodshed and death. Freedom loses its meaning alongside the word family and father.

Life becomes only training and the arena. There are swords to be swung, crowds to be roused and a lesson he is quick to learn that holds true through the years of his time as a slave. With enough blood pounding through his veins, poured upon sacred ground, sluiced from a foe, he is able to feel content; that space within him that once knew freedom becomes nothing more than the remembered tang of blood.

So, only a faint recognition of a blue endless sky accompanies the satisfaction he feels when he is given leave to keep his birds. He associates it not with freedom however. He thinks only of how he is further chaining himself to Batiatus' ludus. Barca spends much time in contemplation of the cages, of the constructs that keep such wild things, for he knows birds are only ever half-tamed. They are willing to remain caged, are willing to be held and manipulated until they see an open door and a chance to leave. Even then, the birds may return, return for the food, the shelter, the certainty. Birds hide their wild spirit deep within, beneath a veneer of obedience, but they never forget the endless skies. _They _do not forget the wind, the vastness of the sky because they never stop wanting for it.

Barca feels for such pitiful creatures, giving them as much attention as he can give, not realizing that all the while, they are giving him something in return. They have made within him a space not reserved for the arena.

Shortly after the birds, the new slaves: those destined for the arena, the mines, the household and one Barca knows is destined to be _his_ arrive. He suddenly wants for more than blood, more than cheers, more than his birds. He wants and it is for Pietros. He would do everything necessary to cage him, to trap him. Pietros is such a lithe thing; he would not be able to escape.

Barca finds, however, that like his birds, he need not clutch too hard, need no angry sentiments but whispered words spoken earnestly and directly, and Pietros stays. Even the harsh words do not cow him for long. Although unlike the birds, Pietros meets his needs with his own fervor and dedication, and Barca regains something thought long gone, maybe unearthed from a grave.

He recognizes immediately what he has been given despite the fact that this freedom differs from what he has known all his life; it is changed though it feels familiar enough. Surely, the taste of freedom could not have always been Pietros' mouth, pliant against his own. It could not have been the taste of his skin because Carthage had held no Pietros. The texture of it could not have been sweat-slicked skin, glorious friction of cocks trapped between them or the stickiness of the aftermath. It could not have been a hard bed softened only by a body willingly pressed against it. Freedom could not have smelled of dirt and birds, of sex and sweat, of their scents combined. Freedom could not have been contained within a single person he can grasp, but it is now and is somehow no less vast for it.

So, grasp it he does. He indulges in this privilege because he does not want freedom to become that thing he does not have. He knows now that freedom is the fluttering that beats beyond, into the wild sky; behind, in one's past; and beneath, within a thin chest struggling to meet his own. Freedom is that thing with wings ever needing to be caged.

o.o.o.o

End ficlet

A/N: Don't forget to R/R (Read and Review)!  
Fic Review: I do like this ship and I almost want to write a fix-it story for them, but I have long since fallen out of this fandom. :( Give me some time. I did cave in and bought the series on DVD. There's always revisiting. ;3


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